Today’s Plan:
- Reminder: Worknet #2 due on Wednesday
- Paragraph Structure and Working With Sources
Paragraph Structure and Working with Sources
Today I want to spend time discussing some of the fundamentals of academic writing. We’ll practice this stuff on Wednesday in the computer lab.
- Reminder: Writing cannot be taught
There’s two elements of writing that I want to handle today: paragraph structure and handling evidence. Academic papers are generally attempts to prove one major claim. Think of the entire paper like laying rail road tracks–you want to take a reader from position A to position B.
Paragraphs are individual steps on that track (ugh, the metaphor is failing me). Every paragraph should be attempting to articulate one (and only one) idea that helps move us from A to B. Here’s how I assess paragraph structure:
- Does each paragraph open with a topic sentence that lays out the claim of that paragraph?
- Does it transition into and contextualize evidence?
- Does it supply evidence (quote, reason, anecdote, etc).
- Does it summarize and then analyze evidence? [Note summarize and analyze are two different things!]
- Does the closing sentence of the paragraph “end” the thought by referring the specific claim of the paragraph back to the overall argument of the paper?
Of especial importance is how you handle evidence–providing context, the evidence itself, and an analysis of the evidence to support the paragraph’s claim. Another list:
- How well do you transition into a quote?
- Do you know how to contextualize a quote [that is, briefly tell the reader where the quote falls in view of the original author’s argument].
- After a quote, how deftly can you summarize the quote–putting it into your own words in a way that “opens” it up for the reader without sounding too repetitive. This is a skill, a real hard one.
- AND then, how well do you add something to that quote/evidence that does something with it?
For instance, if your paragraph argues that Sicart believes players must feel complicity to enact ethical gaming, and you supply a quote speaking to that, then =what can you add to the quote(s) from Sicart to help me understand it more. Do you recognize what keywords in the quote require more explication? Do you have personal experience that can help illuminate the concept? Do you have something to add to the quote to amplify its argument? Extend? Examples? This is really the only part of a paragraph in which you are truly “thinking.”
Let me offer a simple example:
Sicart’s theory of ethical games centers around an idea of play as more than merely diversion or enjoyment. Sicart’s believes play is important because it allows us to explore ourselves and our beliefs. He refers to the ambiguity of moral rules as wiggle room, writing: “To play is to inhabit a wiggle space of possibility in which we can express ourselves–our values, beliefs, and politics” (p. 9). Play, as imaginative activity, makes possible explorations that we might never consider in our regular daily lives. Of course, not all play might meet Sicart’s notion of wiggle rooom. Playing Madden Football allows me to pretend I’m an NFL executive, but rarely does it call me to question my personal or political beliefs. But X game, however, does make me confront questions of Y and Z. When evaluating the ethical power of a game, Sicart’s notion of play asks us to think about how much wiggle space of possibility the game provides.
Even if I paraphrase the quote, I need a citation:
Sicart’s theory of ethical games centers around an idea of play as more than merely diversion or enjoyment. Sicart believes play is important because it allows us to explore ourselves and our beliefs. He refers to the ambiguity of moral rules as wiggle room, noting how play, as imaginative activity, makes possible explorations that we might never consider in our regular daily lives (pp. 8-9). Of course, not all play might meet Sicart’s notion of wiggle room. Playing Madden Football allows me to pretend I’m an NFL executive, but rarely does it call me to question my personal or political beliefs. But X game, however, does make me confront questions of Y and Z. When evaluating the ethical power of a game, Sicart’s notion of play asks us to think about how much wiggle space of possibility the game provides.
Plagiarism. It isn’t stealing words, it is stealing thoughts, ideas. Be sure to make a parenthetical reference when you use a idea from Sicart.
Let’s practice. Here’s a few passages from Katherine Isbister’s 2017 book How Games Move Us / Emotion by Design. Isbister is describing research she conducted on how players reacted to NPCs programmed to have human characteristics. The paragraph:
NPCs showed signs of submissiveness or dominance in their body postures and in the way they phrased their advice. For example, in figure 1.6, the NPC has taken a dominant stance (arms wide) but is using hesitant, submissive-style language (“what about maybe” and “perhaps”). In the study, each person saw one of four versions of the NPC–consistent dominant cues, consistent submissive cues, or mixed (body dominant with submissive phrasing, or submissive body with dominant phrasing). As would be the case with real human beings, those who interacted with the mixed-signal NPCs were less influenced. They made fewer changes to their own ranking of the items than participants in the study who saw consistent NPCs. In real life, consistency in nonverbal cues is associated with honesty and trustworthiness. It is amazing that these sorts of responses hold true for engaging with virtual humans as well. To the extent that NPCs display humanlike actions and reactions, we engage them using social norms and intuitive responses. This means that game designers can create powerful feelings in players when they make use of relationships that players form with NPCs. [p. 22]